Jon Pretty

based on our conversation, i think you need to have a very long thought about what human dignity is, and what oppression is, and why it's bad.

I'm trying to find the best way to reply to this, but I honestly find it quite patronising. I've barely even been oppressed, but on the couple of occasions I've experienced even the mildest oppression, being bullied at school for example, I reached out and talked to the bullies.

I worked damn hard to get to know them better, and tried harder to be friendly to them, somewhat incessantly. It paid off 100%, and I also think that they became better people because someone confronted them with friendship rather than rejection. Some of them are still friends.

That only works when they don't have absolute irrevocable power over you and over silencing you because you are in a shared social context. In this case they can just remove you from the social context, ridding of the nuisance.

That's why I wish they would talk to the target of the ban instead of banning, and why I said banning was a blunt tool.

but you brought up the case where you reached out to people giving you a bit of stress. that doesn't apply here. the power dynamic is completely different. this is why i inferred you don't understand the nature of oppressive situations.

I think these absolutes belie the reality of nuance. You're calling one situation "completely different" when it suits you, and then likening another to the US civil rights movement. This characterization in terms of extremes isn't persuasive. Not to me, anyway.

i seriously think when A bullies B, B reaching out to A is different than A reaching out to B. I don't see how that couldn't be the case. That would require some real mental gymnastics.